


Kill The Doctor

by MuseOfFire



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-05
Updated: 2013-09-05
Packaged: 2017-12-25 18:03:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/956096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MuseOfFire/pseuds/MuseOfFire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>River's brainwashing gets triggered again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kill The Doctor

**Author's Note:**

> I have about a billion story ideas in my head. I intend to finish them. Here's hoping I do. At any rate, I'm taking to saving them on here. No idea if anyone will read them or not.

Fear is something that she has battled with most of her life. As a small child, Melody, she remembers being always petrified. Of the strange and stuttering man that took care of her. Of the constant _“kill the doctor”_ she was taught daily. Of the awful suit that moved on its own, with wires and blinking lights, and its dark belly they shoved her inside, the terrible helmet over her head. She'd been so scared of that space man that she would phone the president for help, and in the end it was fear that made her run, her young, skinny legs somehow landing her in New York.

And she was afraid too, when she was a toddler again, but somehow still older than she appeared, and she made her way to Leadworth with wit, and luck, and stolen money. As she grew older into Mels, she decided she'd be tough, and no-nonsense. Daredevils weren't afraid of anything, so she'd done everything fast paced: stolen cars, looked authorities in the eyes and told them she knew of a man greater than they'd ever be (and she knew she was going to _kill_ that man, so that made her more impregnable than the lot of them, right?) The truth of it was she was only trying to outrun her fears, bloat herself up like a puffer fish, or spread wings like a butterfly to present false owl's eyes on its back. It was all for show—she still would wake most nights in a cold sweat, an overwhelming feeling of dread holding her tightly, buzzing underneath her skin. She'd be shaking because she saw something, but she could never remember what, and the phrase _“kill the doctor”_ would loop in her mind, again, and again, and again.

Now, she was older. Not Melody, or Mels, but River Song, a woman who named herself, and danced through space and time like she'd written the choreography. River Song didn't have to cower to fear, or run from it, or pretend to be bigger than it. River Song could face it head on, and conquer it, and with all that she had seen, River Song didn't have many fears anymore anyway.

That's how it had been, anyway, until the thoughts started coming again. She'd thought she was imagining things, until one day she'd contemplated garroting him with a bow tie. And though it was terrifying, she shook it off, but a few weeks later when threatening a particularly ugly hat she found herself aiming the gun at him a bit too long.

And then today, tonight, there was the fear again, gripping her tightly like it had when she was Melody, and when she was Mels, and when she was not her own. River was looking down at the Doctor as he slept peacefully in bed, and she was over him, one knee on either side of his waist.

And at his neck, the long blade of a butterfly knife, held mere inches away from his skin.

River couldn't move, and couldn't look away, her eyes wide and horrified as she looked down at that steady hand of hers, and the unsuspecting, tranquil face of her husband. In her mind, she heard the steady, pulsing rhythm, _"kill the Doctor"_ , and for the first time in a long time she was truly afraid again.


End file.
